Argentina

Contents

Introduction

The Argentine Republic is a Spanish-speaking republic on the Atlantic side of the Andes in the southern part of South America and is bordered by Chile to the west and south, Bolivia and Paraguay to the north, and Brazil and Uruguay to the northeast. With an area of 2,766,890 km2 (1,068,302 sq. mi.) and an estimated population in 2012 of 41,281,631, it is, next to Brazil, the second-largest country in South America.

Argentina was sparsely population by several indigenous peoples groups. The Spanish first arrived in Argentina in 1502. Independence was declared in 1816.

Argentina is a country of immigrants. Most Argentines are descended from colonial-era settlers as well as 19th and 20th century immigrants from Europe, with most coming from Italy and Spain. Argentina also has a significant Chinese population.

1955 Article

North American Mennonite missionaries (Mennonite Church (MC)) first entered the country in 1917 (see Iglesia Evangélica Menonita, Argentina), locating in the territory 50-150 miles (80-240 km) west of Buenos Aires, which became the heart of the Mennonite mission enterprise there. Work was established at Cosquin in the province of Cordoba in 1935, among the Indians in the far north Chaco territory in 1943, and in the capital city of Buenos Aires in 1949. The North American staff of the mission has averaged twenty to twenty-five people, with a church membership of 745 in 1953. The church organ was La Voz Menonita (1932-1961).

In 1948 about 150 Russian Mennonites forsook the transport en route from Germany to Paraguay while it was temporarily stalled in Buenos Aires, and settled largely in the city and its environs as day-laborers. Additions to the group from Paraguay after that time increased the total of Russian Mennonites in the country to over four hundred. Since the group lacked all church privileges, the Mennonite Central Committee, at the request of the various interested Mennonite mission boards of North America, established a religious and social center in the city in 1949, at first under the direction of Bishop Nelson Litwiller of the Argentine Mennonite Mission, but after 1950 under the direction of the minister Martin Durksen, formerly of Paraguay.

The Mennonite Bible School at Bragado, F.C.O., the Spanish training school of the Argentine Mennonite Mission, sought to serve not only the mission's own needs in Argentina, but also the Spanish training needs of the Paraguayan Mennonites.